Lion Bites Tire Causing it to Explode

We were one of the first cars at the sighting but the road quickly filled with cars, as it tends to do in Kruger with an amazing sighting. At this point, we were running very late for breakfast with family friends but my parents' philosophy, is and always will be, that if we encounter an incredible sighting then breakfast and friends and family can wait.

After maybe half an hour at the sighting, a young male lion approached a car at the sighting and it was much to my younger brother and my amusement. We were laughing and joking that the lion would scratch the paint or in some way damage the vehicle. I had been filming the entire interaction but wasn’t prepared for what I captured thereafter. In the midst of our childish jokes, there was an almighty bang and the lion investigating the car ran off in fright. It took a second to register what had happened but once we had, the intensity of laughter tripled. We laughed and laughed and only after a monumental giggling session did we realised that perhaps this situation was not so funny for occupants of the affected vehicle. We then went over to investigate and offer a helping hand.

To my shock and horror, one of the people in the now three-wheeled car was a prefect at my school, an older cool boy who I otherwise would never have interacted with outside of a school context. Once the shock had faded, my dad began helping to change the tyre. We made sure we were as far away from the lions as a flat tyre could manage. The tyre changing went as smoothly as could be expected in such a setting and we managed to make it to breakfast no more than 3 and a half hours late and with an additional three people.